1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording and reproducing apparatus for performing at least one of recording and reproducing of information, which uses a principle of a scanning tunneling microscope or a scanning interatomic force microscope.
2. Related Background Art
Recently, a scanning tunneling microscope (hereinafter referred to as STM) capable of directly observing an electron structure of a surface atom of a conductor, and an interatomic force microscope which applies the technology of the STM, have been developed and various applications thereof have been proposed. Particularly, applications for a recording apparatus which writes information into a recording medium at a high resolution and a reproducing apparatus for reading the information written in the recording medium at a high resolution have been developed. In an apparatus which applies the STM, it has been proposed to manufacture components thereof by a known technology called micromechanics or micromachining (see, for example, K. E. Petersen, Proc. IEEE, 70, 420 (1982)). An example is described below.
As shown in FIG. 1, a probe board 114 for supporting a plurality of probe electrodes 113 and a lead wire board 119 are provided on a probe base board 115, and the probe electrodes 113 and the lead wire board 119 are electrically connected with respect to the respective probe electrodes 113 by connecting wires 118 such as wire bonding. On the other hand, a recording medium 116 supported by a recording medium plate 117 is arranged to face the plane of the probe plate 114 on which the probe electrodes are provided. A pulsive voltage for writing a record bit on the recording medium 116 by a recording/reproducing voltage application circuit (not shown) is applied between the recording medium 116 and each of the probe electrodes 113, and a read voltage for reading the written information is applied to record and reproduce the information.
However, in the conventional recording and reproducing apparatus described above, the probe plate and the recording medium are in a very close position in the recording and reproducing modes. As a result, unless the electric lead wires from the probe plate are optimally designed, the connecting wires which are connecting parts with the lead wire plate interfere with the recording medium plate or the recording medium, so that there will arise a problem that the connecting wires are shorted each other or the connecting wires are broken. This problem is serious, particularly when the probe electrodes and the recording medium are relatively moved in a plane by a large distance.